This list of Ted Hughes’ publications, life-events and
interests is not comprehensive. It was compiled from my own collection of
books, newspaper articles, recordings, letters and notes to give an overview of
important and formative influences which have helped to shape his work. It also
suggests the date at which some of his works originated.

It is best used in conjunction with a bibliography such as that produced by
Keith Sagar and Steven Tabor (Sagar, K and Tabor, S. Ted Hughes: A
Bibliography, 1946 -1995 , 2nd Edition, Mansell, London, 1998).

A list of the abbreviations used will be found at the end of the
document

Date

Published Books

Published Poems, Broadsides(BS), Edited works(Ed).

Reviews, Essays, Current Interests, Events

1930

Born August 17th , Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire, to
William Henry and Edith (neé. Farrar) Hughes. Sister (Olwyn) two years
older; brother (Gerald) ‘… was ten years older than me and made my
early life a kind of paradise… which was ended abruptly by the
war’ (Letter to AS Nov.1982 re. ‘Two’).
‘Memoir’ (DT , 21 Nov.1998) says that Hughes was
‘… brought up on his grandmother’s farm’. Olwyn Hughes
writes that this is incorrect but that they often visited nearby farms.
‘My first six years shaped everything’ (Interview. DT , 2
Nov.1998)

1938-9

Mytholmroyd house sold Sept. 1938. Family move to Mexborough, Yorkshire. Own
a newspaper and tobacco shop.

1943

Mexborough Grammar School

1945

First poems written. ‘Zulus and the Wild West… All in imitation
of Kipling’.(UU 20)

Influences: Folktales, Yeats, Hopkins, Virgil, Eliot, the ‘very
different rhythms of the King James Bible’ (WP 5-6)

1948

Wins open exhibition to Cambridge University.

1949

National Service: Basic training at RAF West Kirby, the Wirral. Fighter plotting at RAF Patrington, East Riding, Yorks. Spends much time reading and re-reading all of Shakespeare
(‘… he literally knows Shakespeare by heart…’(SPLH Aug. 2 1956)

‘Song’, ‘came to me as such things should in your
nineteenth year - literally a voice in the air at about 3.00 A.M…
’(PR 11).

Jan. 24 - BBC - Interviewed by Anthony Thwaite about his plays for radio

Jan. 21 - BBC -Difficulties of a Bridegroom (play
based on The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz,
‘words, music and pictures… the interest is in imagery and
mood’ (BBC TP, 17 October 1965); ‘a tribal
dream’ (UU 212)

October - Letter to Leonard Baskin: ‘Book of Crow has developed… Are you still interested in a brief series of Crow adventures?’ (discovered 2013 by Peter Fydler in the British Library Hughes–Baskin Papers. Vol. I. 1958-1972 Add.Ms.83684)

The Crow poems were begun at request of Baskin to accompany drawings. (Scigaj, L. Form and Imagination (1986) p.144).(UU 97). ‘… mostly they wrote themselves quite rapidly, the story was a sort of machine that assembed them’. (UU 207)

Jan - ‘Sylvia Plath’ (note on
Ariel)

Feb. 17 - BBC - Eat Crow (extract)

March 3 - Alexandra Tatiana Eloise Wevill (Shura) born

April - The Genius of Isaac Belshevis Singer’
(essay)

June 17 - BBC - ‘Stealing Trout on a May Morning’ (introduction and reading)

June/July - Attends the Festival dei Due Mondi.
Spoleto.

Established and helped to organise the first big Arts Council International Poetry Festival.
Reading with Auden and Neruda. (PR 73)

Sept. 30 - BBC - ‘The
House of Donkeys’ (re-telling of Japanese folk-tale)

The Arvon Foundation Established by John Fairfax and John Moat.
‘… I thought the scheme was unworkable’. Involved with first
course in Devon and was converted. ‘I spent no small volume of time and
cash on it’ (Letter to AS , Aug. 1993).

Recording for Norwich Tapes, Critical Forum Series: … [poetry/magic]
‘is one way of making things happen the way you want them to
happen’.

1979

Jan - The Threshold (LE 100)

April - Remains of Elmet (LE 180)
‘written in response to Fay Godwin’s photographs… first
poems reflected my mother’s love of this area’ . The 1994
reprinting had a different aim: ‘I deliberately made this version a
collection about my family’. (Conversation with AS, 1994)

April - Remains of Elmet (LE 180)

Aug - Four Tales Told by an Idiot (LE
450)

Nov - Adam and the Sacred Nine (LE 200)
‘… to conjure myself to be a bit more birdlike’ (PR
72)

Oct - Moortown

Dec - Henry Williamson (tribute) (LE 200)

Morrigu Press (BS, 3 poems) (LE 30)

‘Brooktrout’ (BS) (LE 60)

‘Pan’ (BS) (LE 60)

‘Woodpecker’ (BS) (LE 60)

‘In the Black Chapel’ (BS) (LE 1500) for V & A
exhibition.

‘Wolverine’ (BS) (LE 75)

‘You hated Spain’ , ‘Salmon Taking Times’, The
Earthenware Head’.

May 20 - ITV TH reads poems from Remains of
Elmet .

Poems in All Round the Year, Morpurgo.

Dec - Tribute to Henry Williamson read at St
Martin’s in the Fields

Voted best poet writing in English in small New
Poetry poll (BBC - Internet News , 1
Jan. 1999)

Dec. 23 - ‘Rain Charm for the Duchy’ (poem for the christening of HRH Prince Harry. The Observer)

Feb. 23 - BBC - Oedipus (Hughes’ adaptation of Seneca’s play)

Britain: The World by Itself , Perring and Press (poem and prose
passage)

July 28 - BBC - A Celebration for Frances Horovitz (Hughes reads five River poems)

‘Subsidy for Poetry’ (essay)

Dec- Appointed Poet
Laureate.

1985

Mokomaki (LE 50)

The Best Worker in Europe (LE 150)

Sylvia Plath’s Selected Poems (Ed.)

29 Dec - ‘ The Dream of the Lion’, ‘Little Salmon Song’, poems for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, published in The Observer

45 Contemporary Poems , Turner (poem and essay)

‘Putting a value on UK’s salmon riches’ (letter)

1986

Aug - Ffangs the Vampire Bat and the Kiss of
Truth

Oct - Flowers and Insects

21 April - ‘A Birthday Masque’ (poem for the sixtieth birthday of Her Majesty the Queen, published in The Times

23 July - ‘The Song of the Honey-Bee ’ (poem for the wedding of HRH Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, publised in The Daily Telegraph).

‘The Whistle’; ‘Group’; ‘Circuit’, poems
by Sorescu (TH Trans.)

Jan - ITV The Iron Man, readings by Tom Baker
begin

July - BBC TV, Terry Wogan Show - The Honey Bee and the Thistle, ‘The Song of the Honey-Bee’ set to music by Howard Blake, soloist: Aled Jones, Finchley Children’s Choir, Howard Blake (piano), David Snell(harp) and Gary Kettel (tubular bells).

Invested as Golden Wreath Laureate of the year at the
Macedonia Poetry Festival in Struga

Sets aside work on Alcestis to start work on a version of the
Oresteia by Aeschylus,(commissioned by the Northcott Theatre, Exeter):
‘..the best thing I have ever done. I read it and wonder how I ever did
it’ (Conversation with AS Sept, 1998)

Dec - In London for Sacred Earth Drama Group
meeting. ‘Valerie Eliot donated £10.000 to group’
(Conversation with AS)

Re. The Mermaid’s Purse - Reg Lloyd ‘disengaged from it
and another illustrator found by Fabers’ (Conversation with AS
)

1995

March - New Selected Poems

March- The Dream Fighter (stories)

Aug - Spring Awakening (TH’s version of
Wedekind’s play)

Sept - Shakespeare’s Ovid (LE 200)

Oct - Difficulties of a Bridegroom
(stories)

Oct - Collected Animal Poems (4 Books)

‘Football’ (poem strip) (LE 499)

‘Goku’ (Creation story)

Writing more Ovid and writing ‘about 100 poems about things I should
have resolved thirty years ago. Should have written then, but
couldn’t.’ (Conversation with AS , 1995)

Feb. - Reading at the first Bath Literature Festival

Feb. 27 - BBC Television - Last of the Dinosaurs (Read by Bill Patterson. The first of five "specially commissioned" stories, all published in The Dreamfighter and Other Creation Stories, 1995)

March 6 - BBC Television - The Gambler (story, read by Bill Patterson)

March 13 - BBC Television - Gozzie (story, read by Bill Patterson)

March 20 - BBC Television - The Dreamfighter (story, read by Bill Patterson)

March 27 - BBC Television - Camel (story, read by Bill Patterson)

April 8 - BBC - New Selected Poems (Hughes reading a selection at the Lyttleton Theatre)

March 13 - BBC - After Ovid (reading one poem)

Spring Awakening performed (Barbican) ‘… powerful and
relevant to modern youth’ (Conversation with AS , Oct. 1995)

Paris Review (Spring) interview with Drew Heinz

‘Sylvia Plath: the Bell Jar and Ariel ‘
(essay)

BBC - (poetry readings)

Considering collating archive mss. Asks Keith Sagar and AS to help,
but eventually decides he needs to do it himself . ‘I found something I
thought I had lost’ (Conversation with AS , Aug. 1995)
‘Something which was lost, which is very interesting’ (Conversation
with AS , Sept. 1997)

Tales From Ovid (TH’s versions of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses). It won the Whitbread Poetry Prize of the Year)

Shaggy and Spotty (story) ‘… found in my archive…
a story I told the children when they were about two and just jotted
notes’ (Conversation with AS Sept ‘97)

By Heart (Ed. and Introduction). ‘… it worked for
Nicholas when he was at school’ (Conversation with AS ,
Sept.1997)

The School Bag , (Ed. with Seamus Heaney)

Late Spring - Begins treatment for cancer

Sept - Talked about Birthday Letters :
‘… autobiographical… I chose two [publication] dates using
horoscopes, April 23 or an earlier one’. Discussion of the South Bank
Mind Olympics and Ted’s teaching in a similar course for the Liechtenstein Global Trust Academy. Peter Townshend’s musical version of The Iron Man being
filmed in America. ‘Peter says the script is nothing like my own
writing’ (Conversation with AS , Sept. 1997)

1998

Jan - Birthday Letters

Phèdra (TH’s version of Racine’s play)

Howls, Cries & Whispers (LE)

‘Did I tell you I translated the Oresteia ?’ (Letter to
AS , Jan. 1998)

Version of Euripides’ Alcestis sent to Barry Rutter of Northern
Broadsides (Conversation with AS , Sept. 1998)

Jan - Birthday Letters tops best seller
list

Jan- Tales from Ovid wins
the Whitbread Book of the Year prize

March- Tales from Ovid wins
the W.H. Smith Literature Award

April 21 - BBC - Tales from Ovid (First of ten readings for The Late Book programme)

June - Adds Heracles interlude to Alcestis
before sending it to Barry Rutter of Northern Broadsides

Animated version of The Iron Giant being made by Warner Bros.

Phèdra produced (Malvern Literary Festival and Almeida)
director Jonathan Kent. ‘I heard one woman say ‘I wouldn’t
like to be Diana Rigg and have to go through all that again tonight’.
(Conversation with AS , Sept. 1998)

’Sold the farm [Moortown]’ (Letter to AS, Aug. 1998)

Oct- Birthday Letters wins
Forward Prize for Poetry

Oct- Appointed member of the
Queen’s Order of Merit

Award of D. Litt. from Cambridge University

Winter - Interview published in Wild Steelhead
and Salmon

Ted Hughes died on Wednesday, October 28th

1999

Tales from Ovid (acting version).

The Mermaid’s Purse (trade edition)

The Oresteia (TH’s version of Aeschylus’s play)

Alcestis (TH’s version of Euripides’s play)

Broadcast BBC - 11 Nov. 2001: produced by Barrie Rutter

‘The Prophet’ (Version of Pushkin’s poem from
Weissbort’s trans.)

Jan - Birthday Letters wins
T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry.

Birthday Letters wins the South Bank Award for
Literature.

Birthday Letters wins the Whitbread Prize for Poetry and
the Book of the Year prize.

April - Tales from Ovid performed by the
Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan, Stratford.

The post of Children’s Laureate, founded at the instigation of Ted
Hughes and Michael Morpurgo, is filled, for the first time, by Quentin
Blake.

May 13 - Memorial Service at Westminster Abbey

August - The Iron Giant Brad Bird’s
animated version of The Iron Man is distributed by Warner Bros.

Dec - The Oresteia performed at the National
Theatre

Dec. 3 - BBC - The Oresteia (discussion of Katie Mitchell’s production at the Naational Theatre

2000

Opening of the archive of Ted Hughes manuscripts at Emory University,
Altanta, USA.

September - Alcestis produced by Barry Rutter
of the Northern Broadsides Theatre Company at Dean Clough, Halifax,
Yorkshire.

September - Timmy the Tug : a
children’s book created by Ted Hughes and the artist, Jim Downer, in
1952

2010

March - The Dean of Westminster, John Hall,
announces that Ted Hughes is to be honoured by a memorial in Poets’
Corner in Westminster Abbey.

June - The British Library announces the opening of
a large addition to their Ted Hughes archive.

2011

December 6 - Dedication of the Memorial to Ted
Hughes in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey. Nobel Laureate, Seamus
Heaney, unveiled the memorial stone of Kirkstone green slate, carved by Ronald
Parsons with these lines from ‘That Morning’: ‘ So we
found the end of our journey. So we stood, alive in the river of light Among
the creatures of light creatures of light ‘.